Can a harp playing in a newborn intensive care unit actually speed up the healing process? That's what one Salt Lake hospital wants to find out in a most unusual research project. Science Specialist Ed Yeates reports from LDS Hospital.

While some patients may have believed it was the angels calling them home - others thought it was the sweetest sound they've ever heard coming from inside these sterile hospital walls.

In any case, it was time to pluck some heart strings in the name of science.

On given nights, a harpist plays what some call the instrument of the heavens. Susan Auld, mother of a baby at the hospital says, "I think it's been a very positive experience in that it's relaxing."

But Brigham Young University's Biofeedback Lab apparently sees more than what's on the surface. In fact in data already compiled from Australia - and most recently at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, "We notice these babies took in significantly more nourishment than comparable babies who didn't have the music intervention," says Dr. Rosalie Rebollo Pratt. "And the big payoff is that our babies, the music babies - left almost three days earlier."

Researchers look at oxygen saturation levels, heart rate, blood pressure and caloric intake. They also compare measurements of babies with music to those without.

Even the music composition itself is following sort of a science. "Something we call optimal complexity - enough novelty but you keep coming back to the same chords, the same progression, the same simple things that the ear wants to hear."

Kenneth Auld says, "I think it's real positive - not just for the babies but from what I can see, the staff. it affects them as well."

While not everybody in this room agrees with the intrusion - LDS Hospital's Research and Development believes music therapy is inevitable. Donald Woodbury is the director of research and development at LDS Hospital. He feels, "We need to look for new ways to make the hospital experience less stressful and more healing for our patients and families. The introduction of music may well be one way to accomplish that."

In fact, the hospital has another experiment underway to see how music and visual imagery helps patients going through open heart surgery. "There is evidence to suggest that whether you're asleep or not you are still listening to or comprehending the music - so we're going on that evidence."

"Music is a universal healing agent that we barely comprehend at least from a medical scientific viewpoint."

The singing human voice - both male and female - has also been used with newborns. In LDS Hospital's open-heart experiments, adult patients use visual imagery along with music to let their mind take them somewhere else during the surgery.